“You regularly show contempt for the people who make all your financial success possible,” the group said in a letter to site owners Todd Cefaratti and Kellen Guida. “The staff who work around the clock to produce timely and breaking content is regularly reminded that ‘writers are cheap.’ The audience is regarded as unsophisticated simpletons.”

The letter was signed by TPNN’s social media director Jennifer Burke and two contributors, Matthew Burke and Greg Campbell. They were joined by Kris Hall and Dustin Stockton, who worked for Cefaratti’s other website, TheTeaParty.Net.

According to the Daily Beast, TheTeaParty.net received more than $6 million in donations during the last election cycle. But at the same time, TPNN’s website has drawn criticism from other conservatives for including non-political content like video footage of street altercations.

“It was supposed to be an educational tool for people who were upset with what is going on in the world,” said conservative activist Samuel J. “Joe The Plumber” Wurzelbacher. “But then they figured out, ‘Hell, we can make more money off of this.’ I stopped going to the site. It stopped being informative.”

TPNN news director and Fox News contributor Scottie Hughes told the Beast that the videos helped the site retain readership.

“Nobody talks politics 24/7. People talk sports. People talk dog shows,” she said. “We are like other news outlets trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. We are trying to make you a well-rounded person, so you can have stuff to talk about at the water cooler, so you aren’t just seen as the crazy Tea Party person who has been demonized for so long.”

But the group accused TPNN management in its resignation letter of steering money raised “using non-profit dollars and resources” into a for-profit company without any transparency, while posting “increasingly vile and unacceptable” content.

“The activism that built all the infrastructure is considered a ‘pain in the ass’ not as an opportunity to save the country,” the letter stated. “As a group we can no longer tolerate being associated with these despicable practices.”

1. Joe the Plumber: Your dead kids don’t trump my right to have a gun.

Now seems like a good time to once again call Sen. John McCain on the carpet for unleashing, not only the plague that is Sarah Palin on the country, but this scourge that is Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber.”

Someone really needs to permanently clog up the drainpipe through which the sewage of “Joe the Plumber’s” ideas flow.

Even the NRA decided to lay low after the Santa Barbara stabbing and shooting spree, and the heartrending calls by Richard Martinez, a victim’s father, for “craven, irresponsible politicians” to stand up to the gun lobby. Not Wurzelbacher. No. He went right ahead and wrote a letterpublished on Barbwire Monday, containing these sentences. “I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now. But: As harsh as this sounds — your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”

Delusional and unbalanced would be too nice a characterization for this. Despicable is closer. Ah hell, the man is a colossal d*ckhead.

He said other things, like how gun-nuts really care about kids, their own and other people’s. To which we’re going to just have to say bullsh*t. He also said that gunman Elliott Rodger was most likely an Obama voter, based on, of course, nothing. Then he counseled Richard Martinez to back off. “Any feelings you have toward my rights being taken away from me, lose those,” he wrote.

You win Joe. You are the vilest right-winger-of-the-week. Hands down. Time to crawl back into your hole, or armed bunker. Whatever.

2. NRA’s Chris Cox: Why would we listen to doctors when it comes to the effects of firearms?

The NRA’s chief lobbyist penned some twaddle in the Daily Caller just a few days before the Santa Barbara killings. He was disputing the validity of the pro-gun control group Doctors for America, who have had the nerve to endorse a ban on certain types of semi-automatic firearms and buyback of others. What do they know about firearms, he asked?

Right, what the hell would doctors who treat people with gunshot wounds know about guns and their effects?

The piece: “We Love Our Moms and Trust Our Doctors, But We Don’t Want Gun Control,” was basically a paranoid screed directed at two of the more vocal groups trying to fight the epidemic of gun violence in this country: Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and, what Cox calls “the dubiously named Doctors for America.” Yeah, wow, that does sound dubious. People with medical training. These two groups, writes Cox, are just rebranding gimmicks for what he calls the “civilian disarmament advocates.”

Nobody gets to disarm civilians, Cox rants, while trying to sound like a reasonable man. Not moms, not doctors, nobody. Only more heavily armed civilians can do that.

We love you Mom, Cox assures. Hope you don’t get shot. If you do, the solution will be obvious. Not a doctor. More guns.

3. Phil Robertson: Bibles in classrooms will prevent school shootings.

The Duck Dynasty patriarch likes guns just fine—they’re useful for hunting ducks—but you know what he likes even more? The Bible. Speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference this week. (Sidenote: Great call, GOP leadership! Rebranding yourself with this bozo. That’ll draw those women and minority votes to your candidates like moths to a torch.) No lesser light than Sarah Palin herself (another brilliant GOP strategy to win women voters over) introduced Phil Robertson, saying he should be called “Duck Commander in Chief.”

Ummm, okay, Sarah. Nice pinwheel hat, too.

Anyhow, Robertson is a simple man and he had a simple message for the crowd. “Get godly.”

What does that mean, you ask? Well, Robertson suggests starting out by putting Bibles back in classrooms, because if you do so, children might think twice before shooting up their schools. “Education is useless without the Bible,” he told the assembled. Certainly, the Bible has been immensely useful in “science” classes where they study the origins of the universe, and have creationism shoved down their throats, as it is now in several states.

Joni Ernst, an Iowa state senator who is a frontrunner for the nomination for U.S. Senate, is a proud gun owner. So proud, she ran an ad of herself at a shooting range symbolically aiming at Obamacare. That’s how tough she is. When she was asked about the tastefulness of that ad in light of the Santa Barbara killings, she called them a “tragedy” that in no way affected her firm “commitment to the Second Amendment,” because nothing ever does affect a gun nut’s commitment to the Second Amendment, ever. Especially the way they misconstrue that amendment to mean everyone should have as many guns as they want, or more.

Pressed again, Ernst referred to the Santa Barbara murders in a way that absolutely no one else in the entire world has referred to them: as an “unfortunate accident.”

An accident? How so? Oh, maybe she means it was accidental that her tasteless, asinine ad ran just before the mass murder. We wonder. Maybe Mitt Romney, who hit the campaign trail with Ernst the next day will explain.

5. Sarah Palin revives the lie of “death panels” for the VA scandal.

The little wheels in Sarah Palin’s head are always a-turning, and lately she’s been cranking them up about this whole Veterans Administration healthcare scandal. She met up with Fox’s Sean Hannity at the Republican Leadership Conference this week, and together they came up with a way to describe the problem that miraculously revives a lie Palin was telling about Obamacare five years ago. “Is the VA a death panel for many?” Hannity asked her. Crazily enough, Sarah ran with that idea. Even farther than Sean thought possible.“That is what government-run health care will result in,” she said.

There was more fun to be had with this one. Like Hannity pointing out that prisoners at Gitmo get better care than veterans. It takes quite a few doctors to hold down a hunger-striking inmate and force-feed him, after all. Who doesn’t envy the prisoners in Gitmo?

To follow that, Palin asserted, based on nothing: “In many respects, illegal aliens in our country today are receiving better health care, more benefits than some of our troops.”

That’s right, illegal aliens and Gitmo detainees are getting the gold-plated bedpans, as Wonkette says. The rest of us real Amurricans: annual physicals with death panels.

It’s a world gone mad when your one fellow Fox Newsian turns all Marxist on you by admitting that inequality is an actual thing, with numbers and everything to support it. Megyn Kelly actually said this week on Fox News that the issue of income inequality “is a good one for Democrats because there is no question that it exists.”

Heresy!

“It’s always existed,” Bill O’Reilly shot back.

“It’s worse now that it’s been since 1920, according to the stats,” Kelly pointed out. “Both parties agree with that.”

Well, tough. Because Bill O’Reilly does not agree with that. And whose side is Kelly on, anyway. “You’re buying into this fraud, Kelly, and I am very disappointed, so listen to the master.”

Yeah, what evil left-wing mastermind is controlling Megyn Kelly’s brain? When O’Reilly clearly demonstrated that “inequality is a myth” because Megyn Kelly herself worked her way up from the bottom. Kelly pointed out that not everyone had the advantages of education and the two-parent home she had. “You can’t get out of this inequality situation by saying it doesn’t exist,” she said.

7. Pat Robertson: Have sex with your husband to reward him for doing the dishes.

Men only do dishes for one reason. If you said it’s because the dishes are dirty, you’re wrong. They do it for sex. Same for vacuuming, laundry, cooking, scrubbing, picking up socks. You get the idea.

That is why, Pat Robertson counseled a “700 Club” viewer who wrote in this week, she must reward her husband with sex if he does the dishes.

“You’ve got to understand the male psyche,” the preacherman preached. “The male wants to do something for his wife. He wants to provide for his family, he wants to provide a home, he wants to provide shelter, and food. That’s what he feels his male obligation is. And when he cleans up, it’s saying, I love you.

“If you understood that,” he continued, “you say, ‘Darling, I’ve got a treat for you… wait until we get behind closed doors, and you’ll see the treat I have for you.’”

His co-host, another one of those women who apparently is under the mistaken belief that keeping the house neat is everyone’s job, had a hard time suppressing a laugh. But Uncle Pat did not understand her laughter. Silly woman. Don’t you know anything about the male psyche?

Right-wing conspiracy nutcase Jerome Corsi has a wonderful resume. You could say he “birthed” the birther movement. And hasn’t that greatly enhanced the national dialogue? Since the birther thing didn’t really work out in terms of getting Obama impeached, Corsi’s taking a new approach to dislodging the president he loathes: immigration reform. Sure, that will work.

A quick review of his other attempts. In September, Corsi and TeaParty.org put out a video demanding Obama’s removal from office, mainly because the president was considering U.S. involvement in Syria, but also abortion, LGBT rights, and immigration “amnesty.” So, basically everything. This was a resounding success.

In December, Corsi was at it again with twomore calls for Obama’s impeachment for the treasonous act of Obamacare. Then three weeks ago, TeaParty.org called for Obama’s impeachment over the “Benghazi scandal,” which is just ongoing. Just keep throwing stuff at that wall. Something will stick.

Now, Corsi and TeaParty.org have a new, or a newly recycled, rationale for demanding the president’s ouster: his push for comprehensive immigration reform.

Such reform is just a thinly disguised, diabolical scheme to give undocumented immigrants all of our money, Corsi believes. Not even the fact that Obama has overseen record levels of deportations has won over Corsi and his merry band of nitwits.

No, foreign-born Obama obviously wants to turn the good ole U.S. of A. into a Spanish-speaking, welfare-seeking paradise, for criminals, of course, probably with “ cantaloupe calves.”

Conservative sensitivity at its finest, courtesy of Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher. Speaking in a time of great tragedy, Wurzelbacher’s only response to a grieving father discussing his son’s right to live is that the be all and end all is the right of Americans to be armed to the teeth without any regulation.

There is a time, a place and a manner for such discussions. He could easily wait several days. He could just as easily frame his ideas in less crass terms. He could choose to use words that will not rub salt in open wounds. He decided not to engage in such behavior, which, unfortunately, is nothing new for him.

This kind of absolutism disturbs those of us that see shades of gray. Not everyone that favors sensible gun regulations seeks to take away each and every gun from each and every law-abiding citizen. Not everyone that believes in the right to bear arms is someone that opposes sensible gun regulations. Wurzelbacher, and those like him, fail to recognize the former and are most certainly not the latter.

I have previously laid out my own view when it comes to gun control. Guns should be treated like other potentially deadly instrumentalities. Automobiles are registered and their operators are licensed.

Guns should be treated in a similar manner. Those that are designed with the express, and sole, purpose of killing people should be banned. The capacity of clips should be limited. Users should be licensed. There should be universal background checks and licensees should be required to demonstrate some degree of proficiency. We do not let drivers out onto the road without first demonstrating they can safely operate an automobile. Gun owners should be required to demonstrate they can safely operate their firearms.

To those that say the Second Amendment is absolute, I would say that even Antonin Scalia disagrees with them. He has never argued that violent ex-felons should be allowed to possess firearms. He has never indicated that one should be able to purchase nuclear weapons so long as they can be delivered with a handheld firearm. For those that do believe in an absolute right, this would be the logical, if uncomfortable, conclusion to their arguments.

As Gawker’s Adam Weinstein explains about the conservative fetish for certain rights:

Likewise for gun rights, where conservatives led by lobbyists andluddites like Joe the Plumber have abandoned talk about the good and replaced it with talk about the right. The good can be negotiated as hard cases arise. The right is non-negotiable. It is immutable. It is either respected or infringed. If you believe, as Joe and the NRA do, that the Second Amendment is an absolute right to personal firearms ownership—not merely that it’s good for something, like self-defense or recreation, but that it’s an immutable right—then even background checks or limits on multiple-magazine purchases or just simply talking about compromise and offering real sympathy to survivors is an infringement on that right.

In this ideology, talk of social responsibility in the exercise of rights becomes synonymous with socialism. This is the ultimate problem with the modern movement that clubbed traditional conservatism to death, squeezed into its clothes, and now traipses around like it owns the place.

No right is absolute. One cannot scream fire in a crowded theater. Gun ownership may be regulated. Soldiers may be quartered in houses during time of war. The writ of habeas corpus may be suspended in times of invasion and rebellion. One may not practice aspects of their religion that cause direct harm to others (for example if one’s religion calls for the killing of other human beings, then their right to completely and freely exercise their religion is limited by homicidestatutes).

Those that argue for an absolute right to gun ownership share in the responsibility for firearm-related homicides in this country. They do not pull the trigger; ultimate responsibility still lies with the actual perpetrator. But they have the responsibility of facilitation; they make it easier for the perpetrator to kill more and to do so with greater ease.

We need sensible gun regulations. I do not favor coming for all the guns, but I do favor licensure and registration. Those are sensible measures that protect the rights of law-abiding citizens, both those that want their firearms and those that wish to maintain their unalienable right to life.

In an article posted on his website, the man known as “Joe the Plumber” during the last presidential election cycle published an unattributed article whose author assured readers that wanting a “white Republican president” doesn’t “make you a racist, it just makes you an American.”

The article, written by Kevin Jackson, contends that “[i]n the pre-black president era, criticizing the president was simply the American thing to do. An exercise of one’s First Amendment right. Criticism had nothing to do with color, because there had never been a black president.”

The problem, according to Jackson, isn’t the legacy of American slavery or race-relations, but the fact that the motivations of those who criticize the president are questioned: “Mexicans disagreed with most white Republican presidents over America’s immigration policy. Many deranged Mexicans believe we should open the country up to them, some saying that much of America belongs to Mexico anyway. They are not called racists.”

Being “called a racist” is, for Jackson, the worst possible fate a critic can face. And yet, later in the article, he claims that “most Liberal blacks are racists. Nobody wants to discuss it,” he writes, “because racism by black Liberals has been sanctioned by the Left, even encouraged.”

“I long for the days of a white president,” Jackson writes, “because under white presidents, at least black people had pride. Liberals have stolen pride from blacks, and they have no intention of giving it back.”

The extremist on the GOP side of the aisle are getting beside themselves.

I get the whole “macho thing” they’ve got going on with gun advocacy and pretty much bullying the House and Senate, even when they’re not the majority. I get the idea that they want to reflect strength and determination to their base as opposed to the Democrats’ usual posture of weakness and uncertainty.

At two separate events in recent days, Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher has proposed to “put a damn fence on the border going to Mexico and start shooting.”

Wurzelbacher first made the remarks during a campaign rally for Arizona Republican state Rep. Lori Klein on Friday, according to video published by Prescott eNews.

“For years I’ve said, you know, put a damn fence on the border, going to Mexico and start shooting,” he insisted.

Wurzelbacher then repeated the remarks at a so-called “Patriot Rally” with Klein on Saturday.

“I’m running for Congress. How many congressmen or people running for Congress have you heard, put a fence up and start shooting? None? Well you heard it here first. Put troops on the border and start shooting, I bet that solves our immigration problem real quick.”

While Klein refused to condemn the call for border violence, her District 11 opponent, Republican state House Speaker Andy Tobin, called for Wurzelbacher to apologize or go back home to Ohio.

“I would ask for him to retract the statement as made in jest, and if not made in jest, I’m appalled at him,” Tobin told KTVK. “We don’t do that in Arizona.”

Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) launched Wurzelbacher into fame during the 2008 presidential election when he repeatedly referred to “Joe the Plumber” during a debate with then-Sen. Barack Obama. McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, called Wurzelbacher’s latest idea “ridiculous.” She had previously said that he was a “dumbass” who should “stick to plumbing.”

Klein, who is running for re-election in the 11th District, drew charges of racism in 2011 when she read a controversial letter on the state Senate floor, asserting that “[m]ost of the Hispanic students do not want to be educated but rather be gang members and gangsters.”

She is also known for pointing a loaded gun at the chest of Richard Ruelas, a reporter for The Arizona Republic, while he was interviewing her at the state Capitol.

“Oh, it’s so cute,” Klein said of the raspberry-pink .380 Ruger that she carries in purse at all times, later explaining that Ruelas had no need to worry because “I just didn’t have my hand on the trigger.”

Watch this video from KTVK, broadcast Aug. 13, 2012 at the bottom of the article.

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, more commonly known as “Joe The Plumber” for his role in the 2008 presidential campaign, won the endorsement of Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) in his bid for Congress in Ohio.

In a campaign video posted Thursday by Wurzelbacher, West says, “One of the great things about Joe is that he represents the genuineness of the American people. Someone who has served in the military, and now is trying to answer the call to serve at a greater level.”

He adds, “I look forward to Joe being a colleague of mine in Washington, D.C.”

Wurzelbacher is running in a heavily Democratic district against longtime Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who beat Rep. Dennis Kucinich after the two were forced to run against each other because of GOP-led redistricting.

West recently alleged that members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — which Kaptur is a member of — were communists.

“I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus,” he said at a recent town hall event.

I suggest you don’t eat for at least an hour after you view the following video. <Barf>

During the 2008 presidential campaign one Fox News executive repeatedly tried to smear Barack Obama with charges of “socialism.”

Liberal watchdog group Media Matters has uncovered audio that indicates Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon was just engaging in what he called “mischievous speculation.”

In 2009, Sammon told an audience aboard Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college that his 2008 attempt to link Obama to socialism was “a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.”

“Last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to quote, ‘spread the wealth around,'” Sammon said. “At that time, I have to admit, that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.”

During the 2008 campaign, the then-Washington deputy managing editor repeatedly suggested that Obama had socialist tendencies.

On Oct. 14, 2008, Sammon said that Obama’s comment to Joe Wurzelbacher “is red meat when you’re talking to conservatives and you start talking about ‘spread the wealth around.’ That is tantamount to socialism.” Read more…

Birth tourism: Is anyone addressing the recently revealed Korean “birth tourism” where expectant mothers can come to the United States to have their babies for a price (it costs about $20 – 50,000 USD. ) These mothers are seeking protection for their child. They do not want their child who would then be an American citizen to join the military in South Korea. Mandatory service in the military is not applicable to children who are not South Korean citizens. Is this not the definition of anchor baby?

Looks like Joe the Plumber has to find a job after all. His federal lawsuit that claimed former state employees violated the constitutional rights of a man Republicans dubbed Joe the Plumber by illegally accessing his personal information.

Sharron Angle has overtaken Sarah Palin and Michael Steele’s title of the gift that keeps on giving. Ms. Angle had the blogosphere abuzz two days ago when she told Fox News reporter Carl Cameron that she expected to have Fox News boost her campaign contributions by telling viewers to vote for her. She also told the reporter that she expected Fox news to only ask her the questions that she wants to answer. One must say Mr. Angles’ demands are unthinkable, that is, except Fox News has already been doing just that for her. Her honesty about what she wants may have a few FNC execs pulling out their hair, though!

In the schizophrenic world that is illegal immigration politics, the public, in various polls, backs immigration reform, wants tougher illegal immigration laws, wants a system to legalize them and doesn’t put illegal immigration high on their priority list.

But politicians, especially Republicans, continue to pounce on the issue because while it can’t be easily fixed, it’s an issue that can be easily digested into a sound bite.

The latest manifestation of this is the growing call to amend the U.S. Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment, and end giving citizenship rights to anyone born in this country whose parents are not citizens or legal residents.

“If both parents are here illegally,” said Arizona Republican Jon Kyl, on “Face the Nation,” “should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?”

Amending the Constitution is not easy as it requires a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate, and then has to be ratified by three-fourths of state legislative bodies.